From ancient byways to modern highways, glimpses offaith are everywhere...

Thursday, January 27, 2011

One man's meat is another man's best friend

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Photo by John Haslam

﻿Once upon a time (9,400 years ago, to be exact) – a man chomped down upon a dog, and afterwards excreted a fingernail-sized piece of its skull.

The proof of this might have (tastefully) remained forever buried within the depths of a southwest Texas cave had archaeologist types not dug it up in 1974, and FedEx types not shipped it off to Maine in 2011.Even so, this ancient pile of you-know-what might still have gone unnoticed but for the nagging curiosity of one University of Maine graduate student, Mr. Samuel Belknap III.

Belknap claims that he wasn’t thinking dogs as he began poking into the matter. (He was likely doing what most might do during a harsh Maine winter – he was daydreaming about the sunny Southwest, and wondering what they might have eaten there thousands of years ago.)According to the Christian Science Monitor, when the orange-brown skull fragment surfaced from its mucky surroundings, Belknap had an “Aha!” moment.He afterwards explained:It just so happens this personwho lived 9,400 years ago was eating dog.

Holy cow!How could that possibly be?

Think hamburger.This obscenely popular cow sandwich is a far cry from the sacred cows of Hinduism, Buddhism, Zoroastrianism, Jainism, and a number of other religions.Ancient Egyptians would not sacrifice cows because cows were revered by the goddess, Hathor. Audomilla was a ancient Scandinavian holy

cow that suckled the gods.Cows cannot be legally slaughtered in many areas of India today.The Zoroastrian Avesta declares even the urine of cows to be “a panacea for all bodily and moral evils.”